The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-12-04
MR.. DICKENS AS A READER.

MR.. DICKENS AS READER.
Mr.. Dickens leaves the impression of
reader who reads, and for that may
cause shadow of disappointment to those
who go to see and hear something else He
is neither an actor nor elocutionist; he neither
''acts" nor "elocutes," but simply reads, and
in that respect lies much of the charm to
those who to hear and enjoy what is read
more than to admire or criticise the reader.
Mr.. Dickens would delight the soul of Ham
let, whose advice to the players ''player"
has ever taken since the world stood, and
probably never will. Shakespeare is ruined
for intelligent people by many who assume to
interpret him, bat who care more for the i'm
preston their shape, or voice, or rant may
make upon the audience than FOR the text
they speak. Mr.. Dickens does not offend in
that way. He undertakes to read his fathers
writings, and after a very brief interest in
the reader as the son of so great favorite,
all sense of the personality OF the man before
you is lost, and you listen to the
beautiful or the droll creations Of the master
without anything to detract. Mr.. Dickens
the reader is lost in Mr. Dickens the author.
1t is by no means true that Mr.. Dickens is a
great reader. There are natural defects
of voice and manner that limit him; but he
reads, and reads clearly. distinctly, without
offensive mannerisms, without show, with
out ostentation, without intruding or
obtruding his personality. Simply,
earnestly, effectively, making the most
of his abilities as an interpreter, without at
tempting to supplement natural deficiencies
by meretricious tricks, without attempting to
"act" or to 'elocute," MIR. Dickens the
reader carries his audience into the heart of
Mr.. Dickens the writer. We saw and heard
with renewed pleasure the honest old Peggotty,
querulous Mrs. Gummidge, the 1ove-lorn David,
the sleepy-eyed Justice Stairleigh, the timorous
Wrinkle, the Unconscious Mrs. Sanders,
and even the pompous SERGEANT Buzfuz, not to
speak of the artless and unanimous Samivel.
Mr.. Dickens, we believe, does not assume to
be great reader in the conventional sense of
that term; he merely comes to read; and that
he can hold house full of people still as mice
for two hours and make the time pass with
unnoticed swiftness is, probably, a testimonial
as well to his own power as plain reader as
to the sway of his fathers magic genius.
If Mr.. Dickens is the avant courier
of new school of reading; if
he comes to set the example Of reading
as against rant, of quiet Interpretation as
against bathos. of allowing the listener to
think and hear the man whose works are being
read, instead of causing every one to wonder
what the contortionist and mouther will do
next; if he comes to let US hear the writer
instead of to simply see and feel the "reader,"
he is most welcome in the new departure. AS
we have said, Mr.. Dickens has natural defects
that limit his work; but he is not amenable
to the criticism that applies to most profess
sional readers, and that is that they t'read"
without the slightest difference as to what
they read. The camp-meeting preacher who
was equally effective in melting" his audience
whether he preached the gospel told the
story of rabbit hunt illustrates the pre-
vailing school of readers. The effect is in the
tones of voice, the airs and grimaces, the
gestures and the artifcialities. Mr.. Dickens
is not that kind of reader and we are moved
to believe that the large audience of Friday
night welcomed the relief from the conven-
tional to the natural.